Halloween pre-partying

I just love the Halloween season. 

 Not so much because I love Halloween but just because it means the start of the fall and the upcoming holiday season. It just gives us an excuse to have some theme get togethers. 

 We did some Pumpkin Carving one night at Ryan and Stacee's. 

 Their new house is like 2 min down the road and it is just the BEST thing ever. 

 Ben is kind of the pumpkin carver in our house. 

 He loves letting his creative side shine sometimes, especially when it involves a knife. 

 

Stacee and Leslie took over that role for their families. 

 

The kids pretty much loved just picking what design they wanted on their pumpkins and scooping out the insides of the pumpkins. 

 

Third year for these pumpkins shirts... 

 

The end results.

   

We won't call Stacee an overachiever....but, we will just say she printed off her own spider pumpkin template and worked until after we all left on carving it and then texted us this picture.  And did ya'll know they grade the level of difficulty on pumpkin carving templates??  Ben's carving was a level 1 and took like 10 minutes and Leslie's was a substantial level 3.  We agreed Stacee's was probably closer to like a level 17. 

But, it looks awesome!  

   Kinley begged me to enter the pumpkin decorating contest at her school. 

 The challenge was to decorate a small or medium sized pumpkin as a story book character that will be displayed at the library. 

 They will pick a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place from each grade. 

 Kinley and I decided together on Flounder from the Little Mermaid. 

 (Mainly because I thought a round, fat fish might be easy to turn a pumpkin into) 

It was so fun to do together and even if it looks nothing like Flounder, she loved it and it was just the best time.

   

We also had a costume playgroup party at the Lindsey's this week. 

 Lindsey started the party at 3:30 instead of normal playgroup time just so that Kinley could come after school too. 

 It was so, so sweet. We loved it. 

We didn't get a group picture this year which is a little sad. 

 I didn't even get a picture of Kinley or Ty all dressed up in their own costume. Within 5 minutes Kinley and AG had switched costumes already. 

 Our plan is a family Batman theme this year so, we will have to get some pictures on Halloween. 

 But, Dylan had his little bat costume cape on for a few minutes. 

 

Lindsey had the cutest Halloween Bingo game for them to play

   

Lindsey also inspired us with a new pumpkin shirt this year that the rest of us copied. I guess three year is long enough for the old pumpkin shirts. Plus, the faces on these glow in the dark.